Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!usc!ucla-cs!uci-ics!tittle From: tittle@ics.uci.edu (Cindy Tittle) Newsgroups: soc.feminism Subject: Re: Sex and gender of Sun and Moon Keywords: note Message-ID: <18183@paris.ics.uci.edu> Date: 19 Jun 89 06:55:54 GMT References: <25390@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <2746@ski.cs.vu.nl> Sender: news@paris.ics.uci.edu Reply-To: David Mark Organization: SUNY/Buffalo Geography Lines: 26 Approved: tittle@ics.uci.edu [This article was crossposted. I have no idea of what happens in this case (i.e., if the article appears in the other groups anyway or if it gets held up because of a moderated group in the list). Our policy is to NOT crosspost from this group, hence the other groups were deleted. --Cindy] In article shelmrei@nmsu.edu (Stephen Helmreich) writes: >A friend of mine did a small study of various mythologies and reported >to me that overwhelmingly the deity of the sun was male and that of >the moon was female. > >The only exception I've found is in Tolkien's "Silmarillion" where the >Vala in charge of the sun is female and that of the moon is male. > Lakoff's 1987 book, "Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things" takes its title from the noun-category system of Dirybal (sp?), a native Australia language from the northeast coast between Townsville and Cairns. In that language, each noun is preceded by one of four particles used to mark the four categories. The central idea from category 2 is "woman". Fire is also in category 2, not because women and fire have anything in common, but through a radial extension from woman -> sun (female) -> fire. At least, that's what I recall. dmark@cs.buffalo.edu